Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-04-30

As this letter added nothing material 10
my knowledge, and certainly raised no furthur
objection in my mind to undertaking the task
! had promised my dear friend 10 undertake,
there was only one course open TO me, namely,
10 write to Messrs Godfrey q Jordan, and
express my readiness 10 enter on the trust,
stating that should be willing to undertake
the charge of the lad in ton days time This
done, proceeded 10 tho authorities Of my
college, and having told them as much Of the
story as I considered desirable, which was
not very much, after considerable difficulty
succeeded in persuading them to stretch a
point, and, In the event OF my having OBJ
tanned fellowship, which was pretty GER
tain ! had done, allow me TO have the child
live with me. Their consent however, was
! only granted ON the condition that vacated
my rooms in college and took lodgings. This
| did, and with some difficulty succeeded in
obtaining very good apartments quite close
to the college gates Tho next thing was to
find nurse. And on this point | came to
determination. would have no woman TO
lord IL over mo about the child, and steal his
affections from me. The boy was old enough
to do without female assistance, SO / sec to
work TO hunt up q suitable male attendant.
With some difficulty succeeded In hiring a
most respectable, round faced young man,
who had been helper in hunting stable,
but who said that he was one Of a family of
seventeen and well accustomed to the ways
of children, and professed himself quite will
ing to undertake the charge of Master Leo
when he arrived. Then, having taken the
iron box to town, and with my own hands
deposited it at my bankers, bought some
books upon the health and management of
children and read them, first to myself, and
then aloud to Job-that was the young mans
name-and waited.
In very little while for, as I expected I
got my fellowship the boy became the favor
| ito Of the whole college-where, all orders and
regulations to tho contrary notwithstanding,
he was continually in and out.-a sort of char
tered libertine in whose favor all rules were
relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine
were simply without number, and / had
serious difference Of opinion with one old
resident fellow, now long dead, who was
usually supposed to be the crustiest man in
the university, and to abhor the sight Of
child. And yet discovered, when a fire.
quently recurring fit Of sickness had forced
job to keep n strict lookout, that this UNI
| principled old man was in the habit of en-
ticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding
him upon unlimited quantities of brandy
balls, and making him promise to say nothing
about it, job told him that he ought to be
ashamed of himself, "at his age, too, when he
might have been q grandfather If he had
done what was right" by which Job under
stood had got married, and thence arose the
row.
The child grew into the boy, and the boy
into the young man. as one by one the re-
tnorseess years flew by, and as he grew and
increased, so did his beauty and the beauty
OF his mind grow with him. When he was
about Is they used to call him Beauty about
the college, and me they niclznamed the
Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they
called us when we went out walking together,
as we used to every day. Once Leo attacked
a great strapping butchers man, twice his
size, because he sung it out after us, and
thrashed him, too-thrasbed him fairly.
walked on and pretended not to see, till the
combat got too exciting when ] turned
round and cheered him on to victory. 1t
was the chaff of the college at the time, but I
could not help it. Then when he was a
little older the undergraduates got fresh
names for us. They called mo Charon,
and Leo the Greek god. I will pass
over my own appellation with the
humble remark that 1 was never
handsome, and did not grow more so as |
grew older. AS for his, there was no doubt
about its fitness. Leo at 81 might have
stood for a statue of Apollo. | never saw
anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody
so absolutely unconscious of them. AS for
his mind, he was brilliant and keen witted,
| b,,t a cnbo h not tl,o I,,1I
necessary for that result. We followed out
his fathers instructions as regards his educa-
, ton strictly enough, and on the whole the re-
suits. especially so far as the Greek and
Arabic went, were satisfactory. l learned
the latter language in order to help to teach
, it to him, but after five years Of it he knew
it as well as dd-almost as well as the pro
fessor who instructed us both l always was
+ a great sportsman--it is my one passion-and
every autumn we went away somewhere
, shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland
i sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia
am good shot, but even in this he learned
:, to excel me. When Leo was IS | moved bach
I into my rooms, and entered him at my owl
/ college, and at q he took his degree--a re
u spectacle degree, but not very high one
Il Then it was that l, for the first time, TOLD
; him something of his own story, and of thu
. mystery that doomed ahead. OF course, hi
j was very curious about it, and, of course,
: explained to him that his curiosity could no
. be gratified at present. After that, to pas
Q the time away, suggested that he should ge
> himself called to the bar; and this he did
u reading at Cambridge, and only going up Il
u London to eat his dinners.
u And so the time went by, till at last h
a reached his @5th birthday, at which date thi
strange, and in some ways awful, histor,
l really begins,
la